Jeep uses Organic analytics to inform its media choices

The Organic model helped Jeep decide on a new media mix, which incorporated the Internet

Consumers can expect to see a new media mix — heavy on online and broadcast efforts — with Jeep's marketing this year, thanks to predictive analytics work from Organic.

Organic, which has been Jeep's digital AOR for close to a decade, used econo­metric modeling to build a new predictive analytics model for the carmaker.

The Organic model took macroeconomic data, demand history, media plans and the price of gas, among other things, into account and, with it, Organic was able to predict Jeep retail sales for 2008 to within 1%. Now, Jeep and other Chrysler brands are using this model in their strategic plan­ning for 2009.

“Really, how this started was we wanted to provide [Jeep] with some really accurate ROI models,” explained Kerho, VP of ana­lytics, media and optimization, Organic. “Jeep had charged us with understanding their marketing investment and how it's performing and ROI in the online space but also in the offline space — at the end of the day, it's all one budget, and market­ers have to decide where their dollars are going to go.

Real-time, dealer, corporate, offline, online, environmental and batch feeds were all consolidated into a single data model to which proprietary algorithms were applied. Constant data updates allowed Jeep to alter its marketing spend in response to results, which ended up saving the company 15% on its marketing in 2008.

For 2009, Chrysler Corp. is using the model extensively in its strategizing and planning, particularly when deciding on the most effective media mix for its campaigns. The Organic model found that the most effective model for Jeep brand was a mix of online and broadcast — a step away from Jeep's traditionally print-heavy strategy. That's not to say that Chrysler as a whole will move away from print.

“Print can perform really, really well,” Kerho said, “but for the Jeep lifestyle, in this case, we were getting a much bigger impact with a combination of broadcast and online.”

The Organic model also is being used to determine total marketing budget, how much to spend on individual campaigns and how much to spend on each channel, from paid search to display media.